The article linked in the OP compares lepers with people who are missing an eye, people with prosthetic limbs, people with scurvy and so on, and wonders why the former have the nerve to complain when their condition is taken lightly.

That's a pretty glib position that overlooks a major historical fact: folks in the latter categories have never been considered unclean or systematically cast out from their own societies.

I believe that in Japan, the laws restricting lepers to specific "treatment centers" (essentially leper colonies) were repealed only in 1996! Even after that, many no longer had any homes to return to. Many had difficulties dealing with the continued prejudice they faced on the outside (because changing laws doesn't result in an overnight reversal of the attitudes that resulted in centuries of ostracism.

This is the twentieth century we're talking about.

Various groups have been making a concerted effort to change people's attitudes. The mass media isn't allowed to use the native Japanese words for leper or leprosy; they've become too tainted with overtones of prejudice. Lepers are always referred to as "Hansen's disease patients."

No, you're not likely to see many leper jokes on Japanese TV. And that's probably as it should be. These people are finally getting a chance to get society to treat them like people. Can they be blamed if they don't want their condition turned into the sort of joke that was all too common when they were thought of as less then men?

Sure, Japan may be an extreme case. But I suspect there are other places in the world that haven't even reached this point. And if you think your country is much more enlightened, do a bit of research and ascertain for yourself when people stopped thinking that lepers are unclean. It may have been much more recent than you think.

That being the case, I wouldn't be so quick to bemoan how those self-righteous lepers are tramping all over the rights of hard-working comedians.

posted February 04, 2012 17:49
Danapoppa:That being the case, I wouldn't be so quick to bemoan how those self-righteous lepers are tramping all over the rights of hard-working comedians.

The joke removed from the movie was a a guy whose arm fell off. It didn't ridicule lepers for being unclean or suggest that they should be ostracized from society.

Going by your apparent logic, nobody should ever make a joke that references anyone who has ever suffered any sort of trauma even if that joke has nothing to do with that trauma. That would pretty much exclude every living creature on the planet.

Sit down for a few minutes and try to come up with something funny that doesn't include someone being the butt of the joke and is still funny. You'll quickly find that you can't come up with much more than puns (which are cruel in their own fashion). Humor depends on someone being the butt of the joke and living in a society that has humor means being the butt of the joke from time to time.

Show me someone who would rather live in a humorless society where nobody ever laughs at anyone else than to suffer the occasional joke at their own expense and I'll show you someone who has serious mental issues and needs therapy, not coddling and special treatment from the other seven billion people on the planet.

Or, to put it more succinctly... fuck'em if they can't take a joke.

DanapoppaMember # 1555

posted February 05, 2012 00:51
First of all, Steen, you're completely ignoring the fact that those people were on the "leper ship" precisely because they'd been ostracized from society. That's precisely what a leper ship was.

Second, I can't disagree more with you assumption that nearly all humor is based on the ridicule of others. There's more than just bad puns. There's a whole realm of witty wordplay that bad puns hope to be when they grow up. And there's situational comedy, which doesn't have to disparage others to find humor in a situation.

I have no issue with humor that ridicules others based on their actions or beliefs; I've been known to engage in that sort of thing thing as well. But to ridicule someone based on a condition over which they have no control? That's merely mean spirited and callous. It's a way of aggrandizing oneself, and one's listeners, at the expense of another.

You think a guy's arm falling off is worthy of laughter? Well, I can assure you I'd only be appalled, if not merely bored. But try this: imagine that it's your body prematurely rotting, and tell me how hard you'd laugh.

Sure, I used to think it was funny that Japanese people said "lice" when they meant "rice." When I was about five, that is. These days I'm not amused by pathetic comedians (and college girls) who resort to parodying the way others speak to get a laugh. That sort of thing is merely childish and disgusting.

But self-ridicule is another matter: give me the same comedian making fun of how he mangled the Japanese language, and I'll laugh my head off. A lot of the best comedy is self-disparaging, and some comedians would do well to bear that in mind. (I remember hearing Whoopie trying to defend her callous cracks after the tsunami, and I still can't help but wondering if she'd made any similar remarks after Katrina. Somehow I doubt it: she knows which side of the bread her butter's on.)

I think if you look more closely, you'll find there's lots of ways to make people laugh, and a great many of them come at no one's expense. I suspect that anyone who needs to belittle others for a chuckle is probably less than entirely capable of laughing at themselves.

And I'm always amazed when someone appears to believe they have a right to dictate what others should find funny. If a person has real reasons for finding something definitely unfunny, who are you to say they're wrong?

Fuck 'em if they can't take a joke, huh?

Well, try this.

Go to a synagogue and try making shower jokes.

Go to a black neighborhood and call everyone Steppinfetchit.

Go to Ground Zero and tell folks you want to go base-jumping without a parachute.

Then see who gets fucked.

I can understand the comments of comedians who wish to assert the their right to poke fun at anything. When you start dictating areas that are off limits, then you step on their right to free speech, and satire gets taken off the table as a tool for political change.

But the right to free speech was never intended as a way to guarantee that people could be mean-spirited and callous to their fellow man. The people who thought up that right were mostly hoping that folks would be above that sort of thing.

So it's not about rights. It's about comedians tempering their wit and ridicule with a sense of compassion, dignity, and justice. Anyone who ignores these things and uses the misfortune of others to make his audience laugh is essentially trying to profit at the expense of others. He's gaining, and others pay the price. In most walks of life, such behavior is considered despicable.

GrumpySteenMember # 170

posted February 05, 2012 01:19
Danapoppa wrote:I have no issue with humor that ridicules others based on their actions or beliefs; I've been known to engage in that sort of thing thing as well.

And you apparently have no problem being a hypocrite and bitching this while admitting you engage in the exact same behavior.

Spare us the "but they choose to..." justifications, by the way. People don't choose to make stupid mistakes and often their beliefs are the result of the way their parents reared them and that's exactly the sort of thing you're talking about.

DanapoppaMember # 1555

posted February 05, 2012 01:39
There's nothing hypocritical about my position. I generally expect adults to take responsibility for themselves. Even their stupid mistakes and their beliefs. Stupid mistakes can be avoided with care, and people should think before simply parroting what their parents taught them.

But is that all you can come up with in response to my argument? The hell with this. Feel free to go through all the JoTs and if the number of comics where Nitrozac and Snaggy simply poked fun at people suffering some misfortune beyond their control is anywhere near 51%, I'll concede that you might have a point.

Barring that, sorry, I can't even see why you posted the OP. Move on folks, nothing to see here.

PS:

Turns out a "leper ship" wasn't what I thought it was. I'd never heard the term before. So it seems the joke wasn't just a physical gag, it was a play on words. Slightly more amusing, perhaps, but still in bad taste.

So go ahead and make fun of my misunderstanding, if you like. I certainly won't take umbrage, because that would be hypocritical of me. (Just to show you I do know the meaning of the term.)

Especially not the part where you said you make fun of people for their beliefs and I pointed out that most people's beliefs are ingrained on them during their childhood and are not any choice of their own, right? Abandoning a belief system you grow up with is easy and everyone can just do it without a second thought. Anyone who doesn't deserves to be ridiculed and humiliated while someone with a completely curable disease is off limits.

Hypocrisy at its finest. It's sad that you can't even see it.

Feel free to go through all the JoTs and if the number of comics where Nitrozac and Snaggy simply poked fun at people suffering some misfortune beyond their control is anywhere near 51%, I'll concede that you might have a point.

No you wouldn't. You're on a self-righteous kick, convinced of your own moral superiority. That's why me pointing out your blatant hypocrisy pisses you off so much that you couldn't even type "I'll concede that you have a point" and qualified it with "might".

I certainly won't take umbrageThe hell with this.

Yeah. It really sounds like you aren't taking umbrage there.

Also, it's "to hell with this", not "the hell with this."

fsMember # 1181

posted February 11, 2012 06:49
The funniest part of this thread is Danapoppa's relentless humorlessness. Well done!